The use of the Internet for commercial purposes has grown substantially over the past decade. One of the most important venues for advertising these days is with keywords with search engines including Yahoo and Google. Such search engines will place ads on their websites when users search on particular keywords. Sophisticated reporting and tracking is available from the search engines when customers complete their transactions on the Internet, including what keyword brought what sales, what IP address they came from, what browser was used, how long it took to complete the transaction, etc.
However, when a customer who desires to speak over the telephone dials a number displayed on a website, that tracking data is lost. There is no way to link up the data without changing behavior by doing something such as putting an ID number on the web page and requesting the customer give that ID number either via IVR (interactive voiced response) or in person during the phone call, or by using ‘Click to Call’ (a commercial service offered by the assignee of the present invention). Changing behavior isn't usually practical or desirable. Therefore, a method for tracking that does not require behavioral changes on the part of customer is desirable.